Friday, April 27, 2012

'BOO-FOR'S & soldiers of fortune'

In military thinking, the might of a gun depends on the quantum and ferocity of firepower it can bring to bear on opposing forces. However, when the 'know all' bureaucracy and 'wealth sucking' politicians enter the domain of military shopping ,for an ant hill,you pay the price of a gold mine.

Going by history, we have a time tested yardstick for choosing our arsenal . Long ago, a very talented gunsmith from a far away land ,caught the drift of a trade wind in the ocean and set sail to sell combat wares to our all and mighty. On embarking on our shores, to his dismay, he found fellow gun smiths from banana republics far and wide, selling sanitary pipes capable of launching a single pseudo pregnant bull frog across the neighbours maternity chamber as mainstay artillery.

Aghast at the buyers propensity, he chose to allow his wares to stand out in merit. BOOM went the gun. The military stood impressed, the competition stood perplexed, the conniving cocktail of bureaucracy and polity found grass growing under their well greased feet. The gunsmith felt, he had clinched the deal on the worth of his barell.

A small framed bureaucrat, well traveled at the expense of competition, stood up, brought together his hands in applause and remarked ''brilliant.....very promising, but we are a peace loving nation, arsenal of this magnitude will commence the end of the world from our own daisy and orchid bearing back yard, what we seek is a muzzle that can launch stool pigeons from one end of a ping pong table to the other. So...very good, but unfortunately does not serve our purpose '' With this announcement, it was now the turn of the military to be perplexed,competition to be impressed and the bureaucracy-polity duo to mow unwanted grass from beneath their well anchored feet.

Ladies and gentlemen, this is also part of the dismal tale of how we as a state indulge in the worthy art of state sponsored shopping.